archived as http://www.stealthskater.com/Documents/Flammonde_01.doc [pdf] more UFO-related documents at http://www.stealthskater.com/UFO.htm Misc. Early UFO Sightings (1947-1968) [the following was excerpted from The Age of Flying Saucers by Paris Flammonde, 1971, Hawthorne Books, Inc., New York, NY Library-of-Congress: 74-115903] 1. June 21, 1947: Maury Island, Washington (pp. 13-17) [StealthSkater note: this actually appeared after the Kenneth Arnold sightings (#4) in the book. But I'm placing it here for chronological purposes] Accompanied by his 15-y/o son and a dog, Harold Dahl was cruising the shore of Maury Island in his coastal boat on the afternoon of June 21 (3 days before the Kenneth Arnold Mount Rainier sighting). Suddenly at a point about 2,000 feet overhead, the group spotted 6 doughnut- shaped craft. One was stationary and apparently in some difficulty, and the other 5 were circling it. Dahl remembered them as being approximately 25-feet in diameter and of some bushed metal, with portholes around the exterior surface of the circular tube. Pulling into the shore, the group disembarked while watching and taking several photographs. The craft -- which seemed to be suffering from a malfunction -- descended to an altitude of no more than 500 feet while its companions remained suspended above it. Eventually a sister craft drifted down and alongside, creating a contact between the surface of the ships. Instantly, there was a heard a muted explosion. The seemingly disabled vehicle flushed forth a shower of mercury-colored metallic confetti. This snow of featherweight aerial jetsam was followed by a hail of heavier darker material which plummeted into the sea, causing it to steam. The obvious danger of the latter barrage cause Dahl, his son, and the crew to seek shelter. Unfortunately, the confused dog was struck by one of the missiles and was killed. It was buried at sea. The boy was burned and later treated by a physician. Apparently the explosion either aided the floundering saucer or indicated its recovery. For soon the flight rose, disappearing at an incalculable altitude. Several pieces of the cooled debris were recovered and saved. On the following day, Dahl claimed that an unknown man visited him, detailing the previous day's outing and warning Dahl that he and his entire family would be in great jeopardy should he discuss the matter with anyone. The episode of the rain of rocks -- or whatever it was -- had caused considerable damage to the vessel operated by Dahl. His superior in the coastal company -- Fred L. Crisman -- took a skeptical view of the matter … at least in the beginning. 2. June 23, 1947: Cedar Rapids (pg.17) 1 A railway engineer from Cedar Rapids recounted seeing a string of 10 fluttering, glowing disks sailing at a great height. 3. June 24, 1947: Cascade Mountains, Oregon (pg.17) A prospector claimed to have sighted a half-dozen unknowns above the Cascade mountains. 4. June 24, 1947: Mount Rainier, Washington (pp.11-13) … Shortly after Noon, Kenneth Arnold was discussing a C-46 Marine transport (believe down in nearby mountains) with Herb Critzer, chief pilot for the Central Air Service in Chehalis, Washington. Arnold decided to look around during his proposed flight to Yakima, Washington, hoping to discover it and collect the $5,000 reward which had been offered. Piloting a "specially-designed mountain airplane", he took off at about 2 pm and headed directly for the "high plateau of Mount Rainier" (a point varying from 9,000-to-10,000 feet elevation). As he was searching, he maneuvered his ship into a 180-degree turn "over Mineral, Washington at approximately 9,200-feet altitude". Suddenly, a "tremendously bright flash" flooded his plane. Surprised and curious, Arnold spent the ensuing half-minute scanning the adjacent skies. But he spotted nothing. Then again without warning, the flash recurred. He identified the source as being far to the left and north of his position. There he observed "a formation of very bright objects coming from the vicinity of Mount Baker, flying very close to the mountain tops and traveling at tremendous speed". The shape of the 9 mysterious objects was not discernible "as they were still at a distance of over a hundred miles". But Arnold could see that the formation "was going to pass directly in front" of him, "flying at approximately 170 degrees" in a reverse-echelon pattern. His immediate evaluation was that they were jets. They appeared to have no tails, but he decided that some highly effective camouflage was obscuring the tail assembly from his view. Notwithstanding the confusion about their design, this author notes that he "observed the objects' outlines plainly as they flipped and flashed along against the snow of the mountainsides and against the sky". The unknowns were passing at almost right angles to Kenneth Arnold and his plane. Having Mount Rainier and Mount Adams as fixed points, he decided to try to determine their speed. As they held to their overall course, the objects "fluttered and sailed" flashing blue-white in the Sun, and "swerved in-and-out of the high mountain peaks of the Cascade Mountains. Although "they didn't fly like any aircraft that I had ever seen", they flew in "a definite formation" with the lead ship higher than the last. And while functioning in unison, the moved "erratically" or -- in the now historic phrase -- they looked "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water". Establishing their distance from his plane as about 23 miles, he began his attempt to determine their velocity. Basing a second calculation on a plateau between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, Arnold concluded that the entire formation "formed a chain in the neighborhood of 5 miles long". Timing the echelon's North-to-South flight between the 2 points at around "1 minute and 42 seconds", he deduced that the craft were "traveling in excess of 1,000 mph". And then they were gone. 2 Landing in Yakima at about 4 pm, he recounted his experience but was not taken very seriously. Returning to his plane, he took off for Pendleton, Oregon where he fell to speculating with friends about the maximum speeds achieved (up to that time) by the military's secret aircraft. The consensus was not more than 700 mph. The conversation stimulated Arnold to return to his calculations. The first results of these more refined evaluations indicated that the unknowns were hurtling across the heavens at more than 1,700 mph. The data were minimized by measuring the flight path as from the base of Mount Rainier to the base of Mount Adams -- which overcompensation naturally shortened the distance considerably, actually to 39.8 miles. However, even this modification still produced a speed of "over 1,350 mph". Finally -- deciding the fluttering of the craft would have been too much for the human body to sustain -- Arnold settled for the conclusion that the objects must have been remotely- controlled guided missiles from a military base. … … … The commanding officer of the Army proving grounds at White Sands, NM -- Lt. Col. Harold R. Turner -- dismissed the entire Cascade Mountains incident as a flight of jets. Officials at Wright-Patterson Field -- home of the Air Technical Intelligence Center which was responsible for keeping track of all foreign aircraft and guided missiles -- asked for a comprehensive report on the aerial encounter. Arnold complied. 3 weeks after the episode, he was contacted by Ray Palmer -- a Midwestern publisher of offbeat and science-fiction magazines … … The letter from Mr. Palmer requested an exposition of his experiences. And Arnold accommodated him with a carbon copy of the report that he had forwarded to Wright-Patterson Field. Shortly thereafter, Palmer contacted Arnold again and asked if he would be interested in investigating the story of 2 Tacoma, Washington men who claimed that they had seen a saucer flight. At the same time, Arnold was visited by 2 Air Force Intelligence men -- Lt. Frank M. Brown and Capt. William Davidson -- who expressed considerable interest in Arnold's sighting. Before departing, they instructed him to contact them should similar information come to his attention. Having accepted Palmer's offer, Arnold flew to Tacoma, Washington on July 29, 1947 to pursue inquired regarding the mystery there. During the trip, a score of brass-toned unknowns above Union, Oregon hurtled past his plane no more than 400 yards away. Soon they were out- of-sight. 5. June 29, 1947: White Sands, NM (pg. 17) Naval rocket experts admitted the observation of a silver disk on June 29. And there was an aerial exhibition on July 4. One report said that a group (including police in Portland, Oregon) had a multiple sighting. In Oregon, several motorists saw 4 unknowns. In Seattle, a Coast Guard yeoman made one of the earliest photographs of an unidentified aerial object in modern ufology. Although described in the outstanding research work UFO Evidence as the "first known photograph of a UFO", it was preceded by half-a-century by the Rogers Park photograph of 1897. 6. July 4, 1947: (pp. 17-18) 3 Captain E.J. Smith (who later would aid Kenneth Arnold in the Tacoma investigation) and his crew were flying a DC-3 from Boise, Idaho to Portland, Oregon. They noted 2 distinct groups of flat, circular unknowns silhouetted against the sunset. The sighting continued for about 10 minutes over a distance of approximately 45 miles. The formation varied frequently during that period. In the second flight, 3 objects flew together with another to one side. 7.